Daily Debriefing
By Nathan Swire
Published on Monday, November 12, 2007
The Green sprang into brilliance Sunday night in observance of the major Indian and Nepalese holiday festival of Diwali. Diwali, which occurs in late autumn, celebrates the triumph of light over darkness and good over evil. On Sunday night, the second day of the week-long holiday, participants marked the occasion by lighting hundreds of candles along the pathways in the green. At the center, candles were arranged in the form of the auspicious symbol Ohm and to spell out the word Shanti, which means peace. The event was organized by the Upper-Valley Shanti organization, which consists of both college students and local families.
Two-time Pulitzer Prize–winning author Norman Mailer died Sunday at the age of 84. Mailer first gained prominence at age 25 with his World War II novel "The Naked and The Dead," and over the course of his career he wrote many other provocative novels and journalistic pieces, including his coverage of the 1968 Democratic Convention that earned him a Pulitzer Prize.
Research professors presented their findings Thursday at the annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. The meeting focused on research into academia itself and how teachers and students learn. Among the findings presented was one that showed that the proportion of women in an academic department increases their productivity, but only when teaching resources are constrained. The report also found that female professors are more likely than males to ask their colleagues for advice, and that on average white students are the most satisfied with their teachers, while Asian students are the least satisfied.
Two seniors at Rochester Institute of Technology, a private university in New York, died early Friday morning in a fire at their off-campus house, mere hours before the school inaugurated a new president, William W. Destler, The New York Times reported Saturday. Syed Ali Turab, 21, and Seth Policzer, 21, were killed by the blaze at their house 12 miles from campus. Four other students in the building were rescued, but one of them, Michael DiCocco, 21, was seriously injured. A fire department spokesman, Capt. Dan McBride, said the house was not structurally deficient so the department was looking for possible "human error or lifestyle" causes behind the fire. Destler, who took office later that day in a somber ceremony, is the university's ninth president.